MADISON, Wis.—The World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) is again calling on national-level financial regulators to tailor a set of key international standards when applying them to credit unions.
WOCCU noted the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the Basel Consultative Group (BCG) issued a joint statement supporting the use of proportionality when implementing Basel III—a set of guidelines developed to ensure internationally active banks meet minimum requirements on capital adequacy, stress testing and market-liquidity risk.
“National-level regulators tend to use the highest standards allowed by Basel III—which were designed to apply to large, international banks,” said Andrew Price, WOCCU VP of Advocacy. “To apply them in equal measure to credit unions is often either inappropriate or excessive. This joint statement reinforces the idea that the supervision of credit unions should be commensurate with the size, risk and complexity of an institution.”
Meeting With Basel Committee
In addition to Price’s call for the Basel Committee provide clearer guidance to national-level regulators, WOCCU board members Martha Durdin (CCUA-Canada) and Michael Lawrence (COBA-Australia) joined CUNA Chief Advocacy Officer Ryan Donovan to stress the importance of proportionality in a meeting earlier this year with Basel Committee Deputy Secretary General and BCG Co-Chair Neil Esho, WOCCU reported.
“We hope all of our work will reduce the compliance burden on credit unions and other community-based depository institutions across the globe,” added Price.